Israel Matzav

Why worry about Bushehr?

Russia began loading nuclear fuel into the Bushehr power plant in Iran on Saturday. Please read the following carefully.

Russia, which helped finish building the plant, has pledged to safeguard the site and prevent spent nuclear fuel from being shifted to a possible weapons program. After years of delaying its completion, Moscow says it believes the Bushehr project is essential for persuading Iran to cooperate with international efforts to ensure Iran does not develop the bomb.

The United States, while no longer formally objecting to the plant, disagrees and says Iran should not be rewarded while it continues to defy UN demands to halt enrichment of uranium, a process used to produce fuel for power plants but which can also be used in weapons production.

On Saturday, a first truckload of fuel was taken from a storage site to a fuel "pool" inside the reactor building. Over the next 10 days, 163 fuel assemblies — equal to 80 tons of uranium fuel — will be moved inside the building and then into the reactor core.

It will then be at least another month before the 1,000-megawatt light-water reactor is pumping electricity to Iranian cities.

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The Bushehr plant is not considered a proliferation risk because the terms of the deal commit the Iranians to allowing the Russians to retrieve all used reactor fuel for reprocessing. Spent fuel contains plutonium, which can be used to make atomic weapons. Additionally, Iran has said that International Atomic Energy Agency experts will be able to verify that none of the fresh fuel or waste is diverted.

That's the bill of goods we're being sold. Bushehr is not a proliferation risk because Russia is taking care of the spent fuel under the watchful eye of the IAEA. Until Iran expels the IAEA inspectors or until the time that Russia decides that an Iranian nuclear weapon is a Russian interest so long as all the ballistic missiles point west. Remember the UN 'peacekeepers' at the Suez Canal in 1967? Remember the EU 'monitors' at Rafah in 2006? Does anyone really believe IAEA inspectors (or Russians for that matter) are going to risk their lives to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons?

Haaretz has more details on the Iranians' 'victory.'

Iran's hard-liners consider the completion of the plant to be a show of defiance against UN Security Council sanctions that seek to slow Iran's nuclear advances.

Hard-line leader Hamid Reza Taraqi said the launch will boost Iran's international standing and "will show the failure of all sanctions" against Iran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated Friday that Tehran was ready to resume negotiations with the six major powers trying to curb Iran's program - the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany.

Ahmadinejad, however, insisted Iran would reject calls to completely halt uranium enrichment, a key UN demand. The president had earlier said the talks could start in September, but in an interview with Japan's biggest newspaper, The Yomiuri Shimbun, he said the talks could start as early as this month.

Last week, I wrote that I did not expect Israel to bomb Bushehr, because I don't believe our government will subject us to an even higher level of scrutiny just to take out what is one of several (and arguably the least dangerous) Iranian nuclear plant. But that doesn't mean there is no danger here. The danger is clear and present. Unfortunately, it's also not exclusive.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:45 AM